


Bona Fides

by MrRhapsodist



Category: Bourne (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Mexico, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 07:52:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6696199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrRhapsodist/pseuds/MrRhapsodist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After bringing down Operation Blackbriar in New York, Jason Bourne travels the globe to reconnect with his restored memories. A trip to Mexico City brings him into touch with his last assignment there, and the man he's become since then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bona Fides

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Jason Bourne story. I adore the original movies with Matt Damon, and I always wanted to explore his background as a Catholic (confirmed by a look at his dog tags shown in "Bourne Ultimatum"). This seemed like the best way to do that.

He wanders through the heart of the crowd, leaving no impression. He’s a ghost, even when he’s no longer on assignment. The tourists’ chatter of Spanish and precious English becomes so much background noise as he cuts his path, apparent only to himself, straight toward the basilica. Its dome gleams orange-red in the late afternoon sun, and he remembers that it was like this before, the last time he was here.

When Jason Bourne was here, he reminds himself. Not David Webb.

By the time he reaches the doors, he can hear a Mass starting inside. As an usher waves for him to enter, the stranger crosses the threshold in time to hear the priest’s low voice intone, “ _En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espiritu Santo..._ ”

“ _Amen,_ ” the crowd of Catholics responds. So does Jason, after a moment.

The Mass proceeds and he remembers every part of the liturgy, back when David Webb was a young man who still believed in God. Who still believed that serving his country was the highest honor for any man, living or dead. The bitter taste in his mouth keeps him in the back of the church, unable to bring himself to join the crowd.

He still crosses himself when appropriate, still knows every prayer and Scripture reading by heart, but Jason doesn’t commit himself to the Mass like David Webb did.

He’s too busy remembering the last time he entered this holy place.

* * *

Five years ago, in late September, an American media activist named Luis Ramon Ramirez came to Mexico City on vacation. Official sources declared that he had come to visit his relatives living in Coyoacan, that this was not a business trip.

The CIA, however, knew better. Intercepted phone calls between Pasadena and Mexico City had triggered a keyword alert: the name of a pharmaceutical company that black ops units like Treadstone used as a front for South American wetwork. Further analysis had traced the call from Mexico City to one Felipe Magdaleno, a retired guerrilla fighter for the Zapatistas, now moonlighting as an information broker with anti-American sympathies.

A plan fell into place, and Jason Bourne arrived in Mexico on the same flight as Ramirez.

* * *

As soon as the Mass ends and the priest gives the final blessing, Jason slinks off to the side. He ignores the throng of natives and tourists pushing their way toward the exit. The ushers and altar servers pay him no mind as he makes his way over to the nearest pew and takes a seat at the corner that’s furthest from the baptismal font in the back.

Here. He had sat right here, shadowing Ramirez on the morning after their plane had landed.

Jason looks up, his gaze fixed on the altar that dominates the center of the basilica. His eyes move from the crucifix hanging overhead, tracking down to a pew closer to the altar. Nothing to distinguish that particular row except for his photographic memory of where Ramirez had sat.

It takes no effort for him to remember the man’s graying hair, as seen from behind at a distance. He’d studied every movement, every little quirk or gesture that made the activist stand out in any crowd. And like a panther stalking its prey, he’d kept pace with the target as soon as he left.

In the present day, Jason gets up as well. He follows his memory of Ramirez with all the attention and reverence of a pilgrim, pausing only to dip his fingers in the basin of holy water and cross himself.

Five years prior, Ramirez had caught a bus downtown. Jason had followed in a taxi, and he does the same in the present. But this time, he doesn’t tell the driver to follow the bus.

He gives him an address and drops a fistful of pesos into his waiting palm.

* * *

The Hotel Hidalgo hasn’t changed since the last time he was here. Jason enters the lobby via the front entrance, but last time, he’d bypassed the reception desk and followed Ramirez to the elevators without the slightest hint of anxiety.

This time, he goes to the desk. The young man standing there in a red vest greets him in Spanish, then in English.

“I need a room,” Jason tells him. “Just for an hour or two.”

“Certainly, sir. One moment, please.” The attendant looks down at his computer and taps away at his keyboard.

Jason waits the typical three seconds before he makes his next play. “Actually, is Room 313 available? I know I’ve stayed there before.”

If the mention of that room means anything to the young man, he doesn’t show it. He gives Jason the same courteous smile as before. “Yes, sir. Let me get that ready for you.”

He pays with a credit card registered to a false ID, one that he’d acquired recently. As if any of the Treadstone identities could be trusted anymore. Jason thanks the hotel staffer once he gets his room key and turns back toward the elevators.

The key trembles in his hand. He swallows and steps forward.

* * *

Room 313 was chosen to avoid attracting media attention. It sat near the leftmost corner, away from the streets and with windows pointed toward the brick facade of neighboring buildings. Unfortunately for Ramirez and Magdaleno, there was a corroded fire escape within arm’s reach of the window leading into the bathroom.

On his way up to the room, Jason checks out another window. Sure enough, that fire escape is still there.

He prepares himself once he reaches the door. His breath has gone shallow and tight.

The memories come hard and fast. Too fast. He has to grab onto the doorknob to keep himself upright.

Jason had waited in the bathroom while Magdaleno greeted Ramirez. They’d exchanged a few words about the American’s flight, and the old Zapatista had to ask if anyone had followed him.

Ramirez had told him no, and so Magdaleno had reached for an envelope sitting on the table.

He never made it.

Jason had burst into the room, handgun drawn and aimed. He fired off a single round into Ramirez’s head, killing him instantly. Magdaleno had stumbled back in surprise, his hand already slipping down for the gun tucked into his belt. Jason had whipped him across the face, stunning him long enough for him to position the barrel of his gun underneath the old man’s chin.

He’d been careful to aim the blood splatter onto the curtains and away from himself.

After that, the cleanup was simple. Put the gun in Magdaleno’s hand, letting it fall to his side at a natural angle. A clear murder-suicide by yet another Latin American extremist. Then grab the envelope and confirm its contents. Two photocopied bank statements and a photograph of one of the pharmaceutical company’s supposed Vice Presidents.

By the time the police had arrived, Jason had already snuck down to the alley. Within minutes, he had messaged his handler in Washington with the confirmation code. His next instructions came back, and he’d left to burn the files somewhere far from the hotel.

* * *

Shuddering at the memory, Jason lets himself into the room. He sees that nothing has been disturbed. The curtains are different, green-and-gold instead of blue-and-orange. When he pauses near the bed, he examines the carpet. It’s the same pattern as before. Not a single trace of blood shows up, perfectly scrubbed away years ago.

He can still see them, though. Their shocked faces. Their bodies slumped beside each other on the floor like broken marionettes. Jason has seen enough bodies to know that that’s all they are once they become corpses: puppets with their strings cut.

No longer people, but objects.

Sitting on the bed, Jason stares at the floor. He imagines that Ramirez and Magdaleno aren’t dead. They’re sitting in the chairs next to the small table, patient and waiting for him to speak.

“You weren’t the first,” Jason says, hoping they’ll understand. “Many came close to exposing us. What we did. Who we killed. You tried to fight the narrative, to make the public see what was going on behind the scenes.” He licks his lips, his throat suddenly dry. “It’s not easy, is it? They’d rather believe that this was political. Another innocent American gunned down by a madman. And they still believe that to this day.”

In his mind, the two victims don’t say anything. They don’t need to respond.

“I want them to know,” he continues. “Tomorrow morning, an anonymous letter will arrive at the editor’s office for _Reforma_.” He nods, first at Ramirez, then at Magdaleno. “They’ll finish what you started. And Washington can’t do anything to stop it.”

He imagines that they nod back at him. Jason closes his eyes. His heart is too heavy for him to go on. He can’t unring this bell or shrug off this burden. Like Christ on the road to Golgotha, he has to carry this himself, no matter how much he stumbles and falls.

* * *

His shoulder aches. He reaches up to rub at the scar tissue he feels there. Another old wound. A glancing shot from a mercenary he’d faced in La Paz, not that long before the last job in France.

Jason’s eyes snap open when he hears the knock at the door. He gets to his feet, his hand sliding back to the knife in his pocket. His heart is racing, but he doesn’t panic. Coldly, he grabs the doorknob and peers through the eyehole for half a second.

His jaw unclenches. Without further hesitation, he opens the door and stares at his visitor.

“How long did it take you to find me?” he asks.

Nicky Parsons stares back, equally disbelieving. She readjusts the shoulder strap of her bag.

“Longer than you might think,” she answers. “I knew the moment they couldn’t find your body.”

New memories surface. Waking up in ice-cold water, his chest tight as he swims through the East River. The night chills him further when he breaches the surface miles away, far from the helicopters and police sirens converging at the hospital on East 71st Street. Gripped by equal parts terror and exhilaration.

At the door, Jason steps aside. Nicky enters with the ghost of a smile. As he closes the door, he hears her reach into her bag. A tiny part of him considers that this is another ambush, another ploy by _them._ But the part of him that remembers Nicky from before, the part called David Webb, makes him relax and turn around.

When their eyes meet again, she’s holding out a bottle of tequila.

“How much do you remember?” she asks.

“Everything,” he replies.

Nicky hesitates before allowing herself a tiny, appreciative smile. Then she puts the tequila down on the table and pops the top off in a single, fluid motion.

“And do you remember this?” she asks, still watching him.

Jason smiles. “A bottle of Herradura. You showed up to my apartment in Paris. I’d brought it back to you after...”

He stops and frowns against a sudden migraine forming in the front of his skull. Nicky is at his side in a heartbeat, her fingers reaching up to press against his temples. She looks him in the eye, and he begins to breathe slowly, in and out, until the pain finally passes.

The memory is still there. He’d bought the tequila after the Ramirez assignment. But it doesn’t hurt now. Not like before.

He remembers Nicky then, too. Her hair is longer now, but when she looks at him, she gives him the same expression as she did on that night in Paris. Her lips curve into a smile, soft and forgiving, blocking out the tequila sitting on the table behind her.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “I can remember it for you.”

When his lips press against hers, he remembers them, too. And for the evening, he believes her.


End file.
